“So, what’s the difference between BackTrack and Kali?” you might be asking. Unfortunately for us, that’s not a simple question to answer. It’s a mix between “everything” and “not much”, depending on how you used BackTrack.

From an end user perspective, the most obvious change would be the switch to Debian and an FHS-compliant system. What this means is that instead of having to navigate through the /pentest tree, you will be able to call any tool from anywhere on the system as every application is included in the system path. However, there’s much hidden magic in that last sentence. I’ll quickly list some of the new benefits of this move.

Streaming Security and Package Updates from DebianOur new streamlined repositories synchronize with the Debian repositories 4 times a day, constantly providing you with the latest package updates and security fixes available.

Debian Compliant Packaging of Each Tool in KaliThis is where we’ve been spending most of our time and effort. Relentlessly packaging dozens of useful tools, painstakingly making sure our packages are Debian compliant.

Long Term Packaging and Maintenance of High Profile ToolsMany of the tools in our toolbox need to be “bleeding edge”. This means we have take on the task of packaging and maintaining upstream versions of many tools, so that our users are constantly kept up to date where it matters.

Streamlined Development ProcessAs our source packages are now also Debian compliant, you can quickly and easily get the required sources of each tool, then modify and rebuild them with a couple of commands.

Bootstrap Builds and ISO CustomizationsOne of the many benefits of our move to a Debian compliant system, is the ability to Bootstrap a Kali Installation/ISO directly from our repositories. This means that you can easily build your own customizations of Kali, as well as perform enterprise network installs from a local or remote repository.

Automating Kali InstallationsKali Linux installations can now be automated using pre-seed files. This allows for enterprise wide customization and deployment on multiple systems.

Real ARM DevelopmentBackTrack 5 brought with it new support for ARM hardware. Our ARM build-bot was a modified Motorola Xoom tablet, which suffice to say, didn’t last for long. To help remedy this, Offensive Security has donated a Calxeda ARM cluster to our project, allowing reliable and long term development of Kali Linux ARM images.

Seamless Upgrades between Future Major VersionsAnother benefit derived from the move to a Debian compliant system is the ability to seamlessly upgrade future major version of Kali. No longer will you have to reinstall your penetration testing machine due a new version of Kali coming out.

With all these changes (and many more), you can see why we’re so excited about this release. Go ahead and give Kali a spin. Head on to the documentation area for some setup guides, and then over to our forums and join the new Kali community!

I downloaded the VMWare image. When I tried to open it using my VMware Workstation 8.0.4 on Win 7 pro 64 bits I received the following error.

"The configuration file "D:\VMware\kali-linux-1.0-i386-gnome-vm\kali-linux-i386-gnome-vm.vmx" was created by a VMware product that is incompatible with this version of VMware Workstation and cannot be used.

Cannot open the configuration file D:\VMware\kali-linux-1.0-i386-gnome-vm\kali-linux-i386-gnome-vm.vmx."

alucian wrote:I downloaded the VMWare image. When I tried to open it using my VMware Workstation 8.0.4 on Win 7 pro 64 bits I received the following error.

"The configuration file "D:\VMware\kali-linux-1.0-i386-gnome-vm\kali-linux-i386-gnome-vm.vmx" was created by a VMware product that is incompatible with this version of VMware Workstation and cannot be used.

Cannot open the configuration file D:\VMware\kali-linux-1.0-i386-gnome-vm\kali-linux-i386-gnome-vm.vmx."

"Cannot find a valid peer process to connect to."

I'll try at home with a newer version of VMware.

Try editing the "virtualHW.version =" line in the .vmx file to your version.

Last edited by m0wgli on Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.